A Meath West TD says that flights bringing fruit pickers into Ireland should be stopped until the Covid-19 crisis ends. Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said he had submitted questions to the Minister for Enterprise in relation to the arrival of large amounts of agricultural workers to Ireland. He called on the government to end these […]
The fresh produce company Keelings has been at the centre of controversy on social media for more than 24 hours after it emerged that 189 fruit pickers from Bulgaria had arrived on a Ryanair flight yesterday chartered by the company. https://twitter.com/FF_Grassroots/status/1251052199276355584 Keelings said that “a very important part of our workforce for many years has […]
The Minister for Health, Simon Harris, has refused to amend HSE guidelines on ethical decision-making in the Coronavirus pandemic to explicitly include people with disabilities. The guidelines, an Ethical Framework for Decision Making During a Pandemic, say that sometimes critical care may need to be ‘prioritised’, and that “rationing decisions” should “consider which patients are […]
The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has confirmed that almost one-third of nursing homes in Ireland have the Cornavirus, with clusters of Covid-19 now in 155 of the residential care facilities. Professor Jack Lambert, who specialises in infectious diseases at the Mater hospital, has warned that the spread of the virus in nursing homes is “a catastrophe […]
Former journalists John Waters and Gemma O’Doherty have launched judicial review proceedings in the High Court today claiming that aspects of the emergency laws passed since the Covid-19 outbreak are unconstitutional.
With almost half of all deaths associated with Coronavirus now taking place in nursing homes, the Minister for Health, has said that some nursing homes are still without proper personal protective equipment (PPE). Government decisions, including lifting a ban on visits to nursing homes and failing to make care homes a priority for PPE, are now […]
A former Minister of State for Prisons in Britain has said that while he served in government there were “situations of male prisoners self-identifying as females then raping staff in prison”. Former Tory MP, Rory Stewart, made the shocking claim in an interview with GQ magazine. The issue of trans prisoners who are biologically male but […]
A new study has shown that Irish nursing homes appear to be hit worse by Covid-19 than some other European countries. The international study by Adelina Comas-Herrera and Joseba Zalakain was published by the International Long Term Care Policy Network and examined mortality in care home residents during the coronavirus crisis. In looking at in […]
A leading charity in the UK has claimed the coronavirus is “running wild” in care homes for older people. Caroline Abrahams, the charity director for Age UK said the figures being released by the authorities in the country were “airbrushing older people out like they don’t matter”. She says the official death toll for Britain is not […]
Ren Zhiqiang, a wealthy developer and outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), disappeared last month. Now the Chinese authorities say he was arrested and is being investigated. The New York Times previously reported that Mr Ren, a member of the CCP, had written a “scathing essay” describing the Chinese Premier, Xi Jinping, as a […]
A heartwarming video showing a Donegal grandad who beat COVID-19 returning home on Good Friday to huge applause from the neighbours has gone viral. “The prayers worked,” a smiling Dónal Bradley told his neighbours from a safe distance. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” “I’m as weak as water,” he said. “But I’ll be […]
A company developing cell therapy products says that six patients who were at ‘high risk’ of dying from COVID-19 were treated with a new therapy and all survived. According to the Jerusalem Post, Israeli company Pluristem Therapeutics says the preliminary data shows promise for the experimental treatment for the coronavirus. Pluristem reported that it had provided six […]